Marlowe curled up on the stiff, narrow couch that hugged the back wall of the tiny hospital room. Her exhausted body willed sleep to come, but she was so anxious and delirious, that the thoughts- both rational and irrational, swallowed her whole, making it impossible to quiet her brain long enough to construct any semblance of sleep.

She knew she needed sleep. Every muscle in her body ached with a sticky fatigue from trying to hold her crumbling world together. Her eyes ached from crying and her skin felt raw around her cheeks. She wanted so desperately to stay awake- watch her husband to make sure nothing else bad happened to him. But she didn't have the energy. It had been drained from her blood after a whole day of anxiety, leaving her in a half-conscious state of delirium, willing herself to wake up from this horrible dream.

As thoughts raced through her head willing her away from reality, she was constantly brought back by a monitor alarming or a nurse coming into the room to check on Carlton. She sat silently in the back of the room, passing time marked only by hourly visits from the nurse, poking and pulling her husband's arms and legs, prying his eyes open to shine a flashlight in them, and pushing multicolored liquids into the tubes that entered and exited her husband's skin, all tangled together in a twisted prison that tied her husband to the bed.

And all while being seemingly unphased by the constant barrage of alarms that came from every other room around them, but especially their own.

How do people work here? She thought, listening to the symphony of alarms that drifted through the crack in the sliding glass doors.

They told her tonight would be a waiting game. That they would have to see how his body reacted. That they would have to see if he got better or worse overnight and then they could decide what to do next.

"So you're just gonna sit here and wait for things to possibly get worse?" She had asked when Dr. Weller told her after they brought Carlton back from his surgery.

"As I mentioned before, it is hard to predict how any individual will react to a certain event or treatment. So for now we must just let his body do the best it can to recover."

It sounded like a load of crap to her. How long was she going to be lying on this couch playing the waiting game?

Carlton looked awful. She still could barely recognize him since he came back from the surgery. She knew that it was him. At least, she believed it was him. But she had never seen anyone look as deflated and mechanic as he did. It was becoming harder and harder to tell where the machines stopped and her husband began.

She heard rustling coming from the bed and looked up to see Carlton wiggling around the tubes. She jumped up to stand by him.

"Hi Honey," she said, grabbing his limp hand and carefully rubbing it. He opened his eyes and was looking right at her. Marlowe cried in relief. Just to see those eyes again, it felt like a good sign. "I'm here, baby. I'm here and I love you so much. You're gonna be okay."

Carlton lifted his other hand and started to rub his forehead. He started breathing heavier like he couldn't quite catch his breath. He looked like he was choking, unable to breathe with the thick tube down his throat.

"Carlton?" She asked cautiously, trying to find his eyes again. They looked glossed over and Marlowe could feel the fear radiating from his eyes.

But in an instant, his eyes were gone. She watched in horror as his deep blue irises rolled back into his head and like a light switch, he was completely unresponsive. His whole body began shaking, uncontrolled jerking that twisted the fabric around his legs and pulled on the tubes that covered his chest. His head jerked back and forth, the movement causing the tube down his throat to gag him and he began dry heaving, involuntary contractions pulling at his arms and legs and even his back muscles, arching his spine and tightening his limbs into his chest.

"Carlton!" Marlowe cried, lunging forward to shake his shoulders, willing him to wake up and wink at her or something- anything to make this terrible nightmare go away.

Suddenly an alarm started beeping more aggressively than it had before. Marlowe looked up at the monitor to see several lines flashing bright colors. Within an instant the nurse was back at the bed, pulling Carlton and all his tubes to the side and watching the monitors carefully.

"Can you come in here a sec?" She called out to another nurse passing by, a seemingly rehearsed calm edging in her voice. "He's seizing."

Instantly the room was filled with five other people and again Marlowe got brushed away to the corner. And again she watched from a distance as they all began speaking words that she didn't understand at each other in pointed tones.

She folded her arms across her chest and tried to disappear into the wall. This can't be happening. This has to be a dream. Why can't I wake up from this stupid terrible nightmare?

Without realizing it, Marlowe was ushered into a quiet room away from the commotion and was sitting in the uncomfortable wooden chair from earlier that day with an older nurse sitting across from her.

"Wha… what happened?" Marlowe asked, staring blankly at the ground. "What's wrong with him now? I thought the breathing tube was supposed to help"

"All we did today was put in something to monitor for high pressure, which is what the machine was telling us," the nurse said calmly. "Your brain does not like to be irritated in any way, and a stroke like the one your husband had this morning can really make your brain mad. So your brain swells, but it is stuck in place by the skull and the only place to go is down through the hole for the spinal cord, squishing the area that controls his breathing and heart beating which can cause a seizure. That's why the alarms started going off. To tell us that might be happening, and we need to help."

"Is he okay?" were the only words Marlowe could get out. She appreciated the explanation, but was in no mindset to be processing any of it.

"Well, the fact that the pressure inside his brain continues to go up despite the medications that we have been giving him today indicates that we may need a more aggressive treatment."

"A more aggressive treatment?" Marlowe asked, rubbing her eyes. She couldn't make sense of any of the words.

"We will be back to update you as soon as we have a better understanding of what would work best for him, okay?"

"Okay, thank you," Marlowe said, her eyes tracing the pattern on the carpet in the waiting room. How could it have gotten so bad so quickly? He was fine just a second ago. Well, fine had become a relative term, but he wasn't like this. She had seen his eyes. She had looked right at them. Why was he getting worse?

The separation from the beeping and the late-night local news playing in the waiting room, mixed with the fear and exhaustion finally overpowered her and she fell asleep slumped over in the hard wooden chair.

Her half-asleep state of utter exhaustion brought about a dream that felt so real she could taste it. There was no way she was asleep. She was at the park with her family. She could feel the grass under her fingers as she watched Carlton chase Lily around the field of flowers. She heard her baby laughing. She could smell her husband's cologne.

The sunny day suddenly got cold, and the bright blue sky became dark with clouds that pelted raindrops on her arms and legs which erupted into stiff goose bumps. Thunder echoed against her sternum. But the thunder didn't roll. It rang. Loud, obnoxious bells that filled the air and echoed in her ears. She looked around for her family, wanting to pull them inside to safety, but they were gone.

"Carlton?" She called out, "Lily?"

Panic started to wash over her as her heart beat uncontrollably. "Carlton! Lily!" She tried again and again, whipping around to find them, but they were completely gone.

She was suddenly pulled abruptly from the hallucinogenic dream as someone tapped her shoulder, washing away the rainy day and dropping her back into the wooden chair in the quiet waiting room in the hospital.

"Marlowe Lassiter?" A man in a white jacket was standing in front of her. "My name is Dr. Singh. I have been coordinating your husband's care tonight."

Marlowe rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and sat up quickly. "Is he okay?"

"As the nurse told you, we have been unable to control the pressure inside your husband's brain with medications. We are getting to the point where we could be causing more damage by allowing the swelling to continue."

"So what does that mean?" Marlowe rubbed her hands on her pants, doing her best to hear the words being said.

"We would like to do a craniectomy."

"A what?" Stop using big words. I don't know what this means. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run to the middle of the hallway and yell at everyone with their big words and beeping monitors and sympathetic smiles. I don't know what any of this means!

"We want to remove part of his skull and-"

"You're going to what?" Marlowe said, her heart stopping. She felt nauseous.

"I know it sounds scary Mrs. Lassiter, but it has been shown to have great outcomes for people in your husband's condition. We will remove a portion of the skull to allow the brain to swell, reducing the chance of complications related to the increasing pressure. In the meantime, we'll attach the piece of skull to an artery in the abdomen so it can be easily replaced once the swelling has gone down, typically in a few months to a year."

Marlowe stared at him, wide-eyed. This had to be a joke. Right? They were going to take out part of his skull and put it in his stomach. For a year? Was he kidding?

"And that is going to fix him?" Marlowe asked, trying to find a shred of hope buried in the panic.

"I am hopeful," Dr. Singh said. "But I need you to understand that this is an incredibly risky procedure. One that we don't do unless it is an absolute last resort- which I believe that this is."

Marlowe felt the words surrounding her, suffocated by the gravity of the situation and the doctor telling her this dangerous procedure was literally her only hope of not becoming a widow by morning.

"Does this have to happen right now?" She felt so alone. Carlton was good at making big decisions. He was decisive and passionate. He always knew what to do. She wanted nothing more than for him to be there telling her what the right decision was. But he wasn't there. He was about to die if she didn't make this decision for him, about his life, without him.

"I believe it does. Your husband's condition is quickly deteriorating as a result of the increased pressure as evidenced by the seizure, and this surgery would be his only chance of survival at this point."

"But what if you don't?" Marlowe asked, hopelessly, searching for a way out of this decision. Out of this conversation. Out of this horrible reality she was suddenly living in.

"Ma'am, if we don't do this surgery right now, I believe there's a very good chance your husband won't make it through the night."

She felt like she'd been shot in the heart. All the air was instantly sucked out of her lungs and she struggled to find the breath to answer.

"Then, I guess so?" She tried to sound confident, but it came out more as a quiet question. She had no idea what the right answer was. She just wanted to go back to this morning. She wanted to be in the kitchen making him breakfast and preparing for their special dinner. She did not want to be in this sterile hospital waiting room making decisions about her husband's life.

"I know this is hard to hear," Dr. Singh said after studying her face for a moment. "But I need you to understand that this is a last resort. And right now I have to caution you to hope for the best, but you also should prepare yourself for the worst."

Marlowe felt the words slash through her heart. Prepare for the worst.

She heard what they were really saying. What they had been trying to tell her all night. He's going to die. This is it. This is the last day I will ever live with him in it.

"Okay," she heard herself say. The word came out a suffocated whisper.

"We need you to sign this consent form." Dr. Singh said, handing over a piece of paper on a clipboard. She tried to read the words, but they were too small and blurred together. She picked up the pen and willed her hand to form the letters of her name. The pen shook as she looped her signature onto the paper. Never had writing her name carried so much weight, and she didn't like the feeling.

"Katie here will escort you to the surgical waiting area." Dr. Singh said, nodding to a nurse standing in the corner with a kind smile pulled taught on her face.

Marlowe silently stood up and followed Katie through the door. As she walked down the hall, she turned back to see a group of people quickly pushing a bed down the hall.

Please be okay. She willed him for what felt like the millionth time that day, pausing to watch them go.

Marlowe sat in another stiff hospital chair in a different waiting room, checking and rechecking her phone for any word from Juliet. She had texted her to tell her about the surgery. But she hadn't gotten a response. She must have fallen asleep, Marlowe realized, slightly jealous. She had tried pacing- walking the halls back and forth from the waiting room to the row of brightly lit vending machines that mocked her in neon colors as she contemplated eating something until nausea bubbled back through her chest and she paced back to the waiting room.

She checked her phone.

3:53.

It had been nearly four hours. What was taking so long? She was so exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open, practically falling asleep standing up. She wanted nothing more than to leave this hospital waiting room and fall asleep at home in her own bed. But she couldn't- not without Carlton there. And she couldn't fall asleep here either. What if something happened while she was asleep? What if the unthinkable happened? What if she wasn't truly prepared for the worst, like the doctor had told her to do?

Even if she wasn't so afraid of what could happen if she fell asleep, every time she did close her eyes, her exhausted mind lunged her into a plummeting freefall of what-ifs, keeping her awake with a racing heartbeat and a pounding headache.

Her fingers found the search engine on her phone, and she began typing in words, unsure of what she was looking for.

Crani-something?

Skull removal surgery. She typed, slowly pressing enter.

She tapped one of the first articles to come up and began skimming. She ran her finger along the screen, trying to make sense of the words as they appeared.

Why would you need one?

Recovery

Big bold titles with dropdown paragraphs filled the page, and she cautiously clicked on each one, afraid of what it would say underneath.

How Long in the Hospital?

Prognosis

Marlowe tapped on the last title, and her heart stopped when she read the only words that stood out to her on the page- the ones she'd been afraid to find.

"Likelihood of death is high."

How could this have happened?

Yesterday- even this morning, everything was fine. It was normal and mundane and completely magical and perfect all at the same time. And now, she was stuck in a hospital waiting room at four in the morning waiting for someone to come and tell her that her husband had died. It seemed like the inevitable end to the night at this point.

How was that fair? How was any of this fair? Despite her best efforts, she pictured herself telling Juliet and his mother and Lily.

Lily.

How could she do that to her? How could she tell her daughter who hadn't even made it to kindergarten yet that her daddy- her hero- was gone? That he would never play with her again or watch her grow old. That he would never get to threaten her first boyfriend or walk her down the aisle.

How was any of this fair?